Did We Do It? Lyrics - Operation Mincemeat

Song Overview

Did We Do It? arrives late in Operation Mincemeat: A New Musical (Original Cast Recording) and lets the room exhale. Celebration breaks out, the stakes get recounted in brisk, comic detail, and then a sly refrain lands: when you control the story, the messy bits can be tucked away. It’s a curtain-call warm-up and a moral speed bump at the same time.

Review and Highlights

The track opens on spoken relief, then clicks into a bright, two-step groove with call-and-response chants of “God, that’s brilliant” stacked over tight rhythm hits. It’s a collage number: motifs from earlier songs rush back like old friends barging into the party. Brass punches, woodwinds chatter, the drums keep a parade strut, and voices volley between triumph and caution.

Highlights:

1. Reprise architecture - hooks from “God That’s Brilliant,” “Born to Lead,” and “Making a Man” return, now recast as victory laps.
2. Ensemble wit - Bevan narrates the strategic outcome while Charles still frets, which keeps dramatic tension alive inside the celebration.
3. Last-minute sting - the “write the book” tag flips joy into a critique of who gets to edit history.

Creation History

On the album released May 12, 2023, the number functions as the penultimate burst before the finale, splitting some finale energy between this track and “A Glitzy Finale.” The arrangement leans show-tune brass, brisk patter, and stacked ensemble vocals - classic cast-recording polish that showcases SpitLip’s habit of boomeranging earlier themes at climactic moments.

Song Meaning and Annotations

Plot

Success is confirmed: Allied forces have taken Sicily with far fewer losses than feared. The team erupts. Charles points out the risk they ran. Bevan briefs Churchill in a brisk sung report. Champagne logic follows: if the deception worked, the rule-bending can be forgiven. Then a tidy refrain - “When you write the book, you’re off the hook” - plants doubt about who gets credit and who gets erased.

Song Meaning

The song celebrates a victory while interrogating it. The cheer is real; so is the critique. The lyric suggests that institutions tidy the narrative to shield their own - a wink at how official histories smooth the edges.

Message: Winning changes who gets to frame events, and framing can hide the costs.
Mood: Exultant, wry, then uneasy.
Context: Historically, the Sicily campaign wrapped far faster than early estimates, and deception helped unsettle Axis planning. The number lets the chorus cheer while the subtext asks what was traded for that clean ending.

Annotations

“God, that’s...” / “Brilliant!”

A throwback to “God That’s Brilliant,” now retooled as a victory chant. The callback turns planning bravado into celebration - same hook, new consequence.

“Yes, Mr Churchill, sir, I’m pleased to report that the Allied invasion of Sicily was a success”

History check: the campaign lasted about six weeks, not three months. Early predictions pegged it much longer; later accounts often cite a roughly 38-39 day duration, which the show compresses into Bevan’s neat debrief.

“We forced their forces to fly”

A lyrical echo from “Useful,” and a character beat: credit flows upward, while the women who carried crucial load-bearing work get less public praise. The line underlines that imbalance.

“The majority survived, on both sides”

A rare wartime celebration of lives not lost. The arrangement keeps the tone buoyant to make that point sing rather than sermonize.

“I never doubted them”

Political varnish. Bevan and Montagu clashed earlier; you don’t tell the Prime Minister the messy version during a victory call.

“Sins forgiven”

The track nods to quiet impunity: pilfered files, elastic rules, tidy outcomes. The chorus makes it sound simple; the rhyme hints it wasn’t.

“When you write the book / You’re off the hook”

The thesis line, also heard in “Making a Man.” The last chord doesn’t resolve, leaving a hairline crack under the triumph. After the number, the show even debates if that’s the right moral to leave hanging.

Style, rhythm, and references

Genre fusion leans show-tune with parade drums and bright brass, plus brisk patter writing. The emotional arc sprints from glee to self-justification to a small cloud at the edge of the sun. Culturally, it taps a long musical-theatre tradition where finales reprise earlier themes to test what the story has taught us.

Key Facts

• Artist: SpitLip cast
• Composer/Lyricists: David Cumming, Felix Hagan, Natasha Hodgson, Zoë Roberts
• Producer (cast album): Steve Sidwell
• Release Date: May 12, 2023
• Album: Operation Mincemeat: A New Musical (Original Cast Recording) - track 16
• Genre: Show tune with reprise collage; brisk patter and chant refrains
• Language: English
• Instruments noted: piano/keys, drum kit, bass, brass section, reeds
• Music style: two-step pulse, ensemble call-and-response, thematic callbacks from earlier numbers
• Mood: celebratory with an aftertaste of unease
• Poetic meter: patter verses over marchlike accents; refrain in tight syllabic chants
• Label: Sony Music - Masterworks Broadway

Questions and Answers

What dramatic job does this song do so late in the show?

It confirms success while smuggling in the show’s ethical critique. The cheers are the honey; the “write the book” tag is the sting.

Why recycle earlier hooks here?

Because victory reframes everything. Returning motifs let the audience hear how confidence, planning and bravado sound after the gamble pays off.

Is the history tidy in real life?

Not really. The Sicily campaign ended in roughly six weeks, far quicker than some forecasts, and deception helped - but historians still debate how much each factor mattered.

Who gets official credit inside the lyric?

Bevan names Montagu and Cholmondeley for top commendations, while Jean and Hester’s work is implied. The song makes that asymmetry part of the point.

Why leave the final harmony unresolved?

To keep a question hanging in the air: are we celebrating the outcome, or the power to narrate it?

Awards and Chart Positions

• Olivier Awards 2024: Operation Mincemeat won Best New Musical; Jak Malone won Best Supporting Actor in a Musical.
• UK Official Charts: The cast recording peaked at no. 5 on the Official Soundtrack Albums Chart, and reached no. 32 on the Official Compilations Chart during its run.

As reported by major outlets such as Reuters and the Associated Press, the Olivier wins capped the show’s word-of-mouth climb. According to the Official Charts Company, the album enjoyed sustained chart presence across soundtrack and compilations lists.

Additional Info

Historical notes: Deception operations shifted Axis focus toward Greece and Sardinia. Modern summaries often cite that diversion alongside other factors when explaining why Sicily fell so quickly. As stated in Britannica, the campaign ended in about 39 days; some narratives round that to 38.

Honours context: In real life, Ewen Montagu received the OBE and Charles Cholmondeley received the MBE. The song’s “highest” commendations language sits inside the show’s satirical frame.